Free Tools and Resources

For DNS and DHCP system administrators

These are a few of the tools we use, and a few web sites that document many more tools. At the bottom is a list of books and other information resources. Please note that it is your responsibility to check the licensing terms of any software you download. We welcome suggestions for additions, or deletions (let us know if something we are linking to is inaccurate), or broken links. Send any suggestions or corrections to web-request at isc dot org.

BIND9.net Tools Directory

The Measurement Factory tools

The Measurement Factory offers several tools for DNS, including dnsdump, a Perl script like tcpdump, and several applications for collecting and displaying DNS statistics; dnstop, DSC (DNS Statistics Collector), and Traffic Gist.

DNSstuff

SPF Record Testing

Web-based tool recommended on BIND-users, http://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html. “These tools are meant to help you deploy SPF records for your domain. They use an actual RFC 7208 compliant library (pyspf) for tests and will dynamically test for processing limit errors (no other testers I’m aware of do this).”

From the Debian package description “gadmin-bind is an easy to use GTK+ frontend for ISC BIND. It handles multiple domains and can switch from master to slave domain in three clicks. It can change the domain name for entire domains and subdomains, including domain resources such as MX, A, AAAA, CNAME, and NS. gadmin-bind can also generate and set up secret keys for rndc, construct a chroot environment, and handle DDNS operations.”

On-line domain checker. You enter the domain name and IntoDNS performs some checks on the glue, NS records, server health, SOA/TTLS, MX and WWW records.

Kloth.net

Kloth.net has half a dozen or so networking tools, including the ability to find your IP, query WHOIS, DNS lookup, ping, traceroute, or translate/convert an IP V4 address between dotted quad, decimal, hex and binary, do a PTR reverse lookup in the DNS, and search for location information, among others.

Microsoft ccTLD Registry Security Scan

At the DNS-OARC Spring 2014 workshop in Warsaw, Microsoft presented on a new free service they are offing to ccTLDs. Microsoft is offering a scan of ccTLD registry sites for a range of common security vulnerabilities. Since launching this, they have scanned 7 ccTLDs already and found over 130 serious security problems. The results are reported privately to the ccTLD requesting the scan. Apply via email. Read about this program here.

Posted on BIND-users: “My program nsdiff (http://dotat.at/prog/nsdiff) is useful for copying dynamic zones from from an existing master to a new master without faffing around with `rndc freeze`. On the new master, run nsdiff -m oldmaster -s localhost myzone | nsupdate -l
and it will axfr the zone from the oldmaster and copy it into the new.” – Tony Finch

NS lint is a utility written by Craig Leres of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, that checks your BIND zone files for errors. The current version is available via anonymous ftp: ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/nslint.tar.gz

Passive DNS

query-loc: a program to retrieve and display the location information in the DNS. From Stéphane Bortzmeyer. It uses the algorithms described in RFC 1876 (and RFC 1101 to get the network names). You can find examples of networks wchich implement this scheme in the ADDRESSES file. Its official home is <http://github.com/bortzmeyer/query-loc/>.

Zonemaster, developed by IIS and AFRINIC, is a web-based zone checker. It will run a number of health checks on a domain, including DNSSEC but also basic checks for accessibility, consistency, delegation and basic security. Zonemaster can also be used to test an undelegated domain (for example, prior to registering it). Zonemaster will save the history from prior scans, useful for troubleshooting problems.

ISOC DNSSEC Resources

DNSSEC.Net

ZKT is a tool to manage keys and signatures for DNSSEC-zones. More details are available at http://www.hznet.de/dns/zkt/

DNSViz

DNSViz provides a visual analysis of the DNSSEC authentication chain for a domain name and its resolution path in the DNS namespace, and it lists configuration errors detected by the tool.

DRILL

Drill is a very useful tool from NLNet Labs. It was designed with DNSSEC in mind and is a useful debugging/query tool for DNSSEC.

GetDNS

At the Spring 2014 DNS-OARC workshop, NLNet Labs introduced their new DNS API, GetDNS. This API, and the library that implements it, are intended to provide access to DNSSEC validation to higher-level (non-DNS) applications, such as, for example, DKIM.

RIPE NCC

DNSSEC validator from cz.NIC

Browser plug-in that does DNSSEC validation from your desktop. This is simple to install, simple to use and it gives you feedback right in your browser telling you whether the site you are connected to is DNSSEC signed. Currently supports Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Apple Safari browsers. Download from Mozilla or from cz.NIC.